“Love is love and fun is fun. But it is always so quiet when the gold fish die.”
Across the River and into the Trees“Love is love and fun is fun. But it is always so quiet when the gold fish die.” is the Supreme Secret of the Order, delivered by the Colonel as the decisive revelation in the girl’s induction. The saying is strikingly simple, but its balance of affection and pleasure against the quiet fact of death gives the Order’s ceremonial secret a darker weight than its playful setting first suggests.
The Wording of the Secret
The sentence is built in two movements. First comes the evenly balanced declaration, “Love is love and fun is fun.” Its repeated terms are left unexplained: love and fun are treated as things that require no definition. The short sentences sound self-contained, almost like a maxim whose authority rests on its bluntness rather than on an argument. Then the word “But” breaks that balance. What follows is not a further account of love or pleasure, but an image of quietness when gold fish die.
That turn makes the saying’s force depend on contrast. Love and fun name experience at its liveliest; the final clause draws attention to a death marked not by spectacle but by silence. The statement does not explain why the fish die or say what anyone should do in response. Instead, it leaves the listener with the small, plain fact that death can be quiet. The modest image gives the secret its memorable scale: the revelation is not a grand account of the Order, but a compact observation that places pleasure beside loss.
A Secret Revealed in Ceremony
The saying acquires its formal status during the girl’s induction. The Gran Maestro tells her she is already a member by merit of war, although her parchment has not yet arrived, and appoints her Super Honorary Secretary. He then turns to the Colonel to reveal the Order’s secrets. Before proceeding, the Colonel checks whether there are any “pitted folk” present; the Gran Maestro replies that the relevant man is out with his Lady. The exchange makes the disclosure feel controlled and ceremonial, as though the secret requires a particular audience.
The revelation itself is staged through repeated declarations. The Colonel asks the Gran Maestro to correct him if he errs, receives permission to proceed, and tells the girl to listen carefully. He names what follows as the Supreme Secret before delivering the sentence. The Gran Maestro then confirms that it has been revealed. This sequence wraps a brief saying in the language and rhythm of an official rite. The contrast is part of the scene’s effect: the elaborate announcement promises hidden knowledge, while the knowledge itself is direct, domestic in scale, and resistant to explanation.
Membership, Roughness, and the Return to Ordinary Business
The girl responds that she is proud and happy to belong to the Order, while also calling it rather rough. The Colonel agrees that it is indeed rough. Her response places the secret within an institution that offers belonging and ceremony without presenting itself as gentle or decorous. The saying does not make the Order’s roughness disappear; instead, its quiet image of death gives the scene a note of seriousness amid the members’ formal play.
Immediately after the revelation, the Colonel asks what they will actually eat, “without mysteries.” The Gran Maestro answers with a specific menu: cold crab enchillada served in its shell, followed by sole for the girl and a mixed grill for his lady, then asks about vegetables. The transition shifts the conversation from a solemnly announced secret to the practical details of a meal. That movement does not cancel the saying’s gravity. It places it in the Order’s characteristic scene of ceremony and conviviality, where a thought about love, pleasure, and death can be formally proclaimed and then followed by the ordinary question of what is for dinner.
Significance
As the Order’s Supreme Secret, the sentence is less a key that unlocks further information than a concentrated statement of its emotional register. Its first half accepts love and fun in plain terms; its final turn insists that pleasure exists alongside death, whose quietness may be more unsettling than any grand display. The scene gives that thought force through the difference between its presentation and its content: an official revelation is made with careful ceremony, yet what is revealed is an unadorned observation about loss. The subsequent return to dinner leaves the saying suspended between solemnity and everyday life, without resolving the tension it creates.
